Reiman Gardens soon will have thousands more flowers. With a $10 million construction budget, Reiman Gardens is planning to double its size within two years. Two new gardens, a pond area, a conservatory, a butterfly house and several buildings will all be completed by September 2002. The gardens presently occupy six of its 14 acres, and once construction is completed, 12 acres will be developed. An arboretum and Town and Country Garden are currently under construction. The arboretum, a more natural area featuring both cultivated and native plants arranged by association, will cover four acres south of the current gardens. “Plants segregate themselves in nature, and that’s how we’re going to arrange them,” said Nick Howell, superintendent of Reiman Gardens. “It will also include water features and a boardwalk. It will be very beautiful.” The one-and-a-half-acre Town and Country Garden is actually a dozen distinct gardens designed to give ideas to homeowners who are planning private gardens. “It is a small and intimate, very introverted, very beautiful garden,” Howell said. The Town and Country Garden will include a 1,200 square-foot building that will serve as a teaching pavilion and garden house. Consisting of a large multi-purpose room and two restrooms, it will be a “very usable facility,” Howell said. A half-acre pond designed to display aquatic-plant life is also currently being constructed as a gift from Country Landscapes, 56985 Lincoln Way. The land around the pond will be seeded with grass to await future development. In spring 2001, Reiman Gardens will break ground on a new 28,000 square-foot conservatory complex. The new building will include a 5,000 square-foot conservatory, a 2,500 square-foot butterfly house, a lecture and multipurpose room, production greenhouses, a caf‚, a gift shop and a lobby area. The complex, which will be located west of the Mahlstede Building and north of the Patty Jischke Children’s Garden, is expected to open in September 2002. McLaughlin said the additions will create an entirely new Reiman Gardens. “The garden is so beautiful and is growing so much, it doesn’t seem like we’ve opened yet, but we’ve been open since September of 1995,” McLaughlin said. “We’re a very young garden, but that’s hard to tell. We’ve received national attention for the rose gardens, and this incredible project hasn’t even begun.” Reiman Gardens currently does not charge admission, but that may change once the construction is completed. “All public gardens have admission charges, and especially with the cutbacks, it would be hard to justify the expense when we have to pay for faculty,” McLaughlin said. McLaughlin said she has done a survey of other university gardens and found that most charge between $5 and $7. Reiman Gardens officials have no plans right now, but McLaughlin said they plan to fund half of the gardens with admission and gift-shop sales, and the other half with private support. Another recent change in the gardens was the naming of its Children’s Garden in honor of Patty Jischke, wife of former ISU President Martin Jischke. Howell said he thinks the naming of the Patty Jischke Children’s Garden was a good idea. “For those of us who knew Patty, we know she has an inner child. This was a very appropriate way to honor her,” Howell said. Teresa McLaughlin, director of public relations at Reiman Gardens, said Jischke created a volunteer group called the CoHorts to work in the gardens. The group weeds, plants the 26,000 annuals each spring, runs all tours and programs many events. “She pulled that group together and was one of the first presidents,” McLaughlin said. “It was instrumental in our success.” Take a virtual tour of Reiman Gardens